Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Port fails to sell despite 50% discount amid poor interest

The State Property Fund was unable to sell the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Port sea trade port, despite the halving of the price. The auction, scheduled for today, did not take place again due to the lack of participants, according to the website Prozorro.Sale.

This was SPFU's fourth attempt to sell the port. After unsuccessful bidding on June 6, the starting price and the amount of the guarantee fee were halved – to UAH 92.5 million ($2.5 million) and UAH 18.49 million ($500,589), respectively. However, there were no buyers willing to acquire the lot.

The Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Port is located on the western shore of the Dniester estuary and, in wartime conditions, since April 2022, has been used by Ukraine as a logistics center for ports on the Danube. It receives cargo on trucks and sends them further in containers.

The port in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi was meant to be privatized even before the start of the full-scale war. It operated with losses in the range of UAH 24-29 million ($650,000-785,000) per year and did not bring in money even to pay employees' salaries.

After all, in just six months of 2022, the company handled more cargo than in the previous three years in total.

For the first time, SPFU put up the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi port for privatization at the beginning of March, but the auction was deemed not to have taken place. After that, the starting price of the port was halved — from UAH 187.6 million ($5.1 milion) to UAH 93.8 million ($2.5 million).

At the second auction, Ukrdoninvest LLC, owned by businessman Vitaliy Kropachov, offered UAH 220 million ($6 million) for the port, but never remitted the money. The fund recognized the auction for the sale of the port as not having taken place.

The third attempt involved the sale of the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi port for UAH 184.92 million ($5 million) (without VAT). No one attended the auction.